Hi all,

I've played Greyhound Manager for quite some time and needed a new itch. I've spent the last few days reading through multiple posts and finally made the jump and purchased the game last night.

I have a question on finding good horses to start out in my breeding program. I learned to cheat through Greyhound Manager, so money won't necessarily be an issue (win accumulator on 1st day = millions). For my first save, I sold all of the horses I started out w/ as they all appeared to be crap. I then skipped ahead until the Thursday auction each week to look for Grade 1 winners. After one year, I was able to snap up a couple of filly's that had 2-3 Grade 1 wins each, that was the best that was available. Here are my questions for those of you kind enough to answer:

-Should I be picky and wait for the right horses to pop up or snap up any horses with a good rating regardless of age or races won?

-What would you consider a good ranking for a horse (80+, 100+, 120+) to have the potential for good offspring and to potentially buy at auction? There are a lot of 100+ but w/ no grade 1 wins so I skip over.

-Thoughts on 2 years in these Thursday auctions that cost a lot of money but have no races to their names yet, should I potentially look to snap these up?

-Is the price usually indicative of how good that horse will be for breeding? Starting out, I see a lot of older horses going for high prices but don't have any races to their name.

-Is it worth it to breed w/ horses you don't own? I didn't purchase any stallions my first year as I couldn't find quality but had two G1 fillies that I ended up breeding w/ horses I didn't own (1 Derby Winner, 1 Breeder's Cup Winner). Is that just a crapshoot as I'm not able to see any of their attributes?

Thank you all for your input. I know that there is a lot there and I've read through many posts to try and find these answers. Hopefully the poster "rhodes" replies as he seems to be a legend from looking over all his horses on here!

Initially I'd say just get breeding with the best you can and see what you end up with, that will tell you a lot. Also have a look on the league page as there is lots of info on how to breed league horses on there.

I honestly think that it is best to start breeding by trial and error and transferring any potential breeding prospects into the game pool before retiring them to the barn. Then once you have an idea of what you want to breed and how you want to do it you can transfer your best into a new game and use what you have learned. Everybody does it slightly differently, but almost the same. It will take a while to get the hang of, but don't go breeding too many superstars too quickly otherwise you'll ruin the game before you even start it!

He is a legend, Paul is the man.

ah thanks Kev stop that now
my reply coming amathews3416 and welcome mate

Hi Mate welcome

what you do is start a new game but skip first 6 months(THIS OPTION AVAILABLE B4 START OF GAME)
this starts the game in july
sell your 5 horses to get some dosh
do the money cheat i look for a straight forecast this brings big money in
once i have 30 -40 million i go to thursday auction looking for a group winner
group one winner if possible if there stats are no good then re sell
this will take you to the end of the first season in the 6 months you have been looking you
should find something decent.

at the start you have little choice but to buy end of season 2yo
what i do is save game on last day of season
i then go to the 2yo auction
buy every 2yo that costs over a million
i then go to day 1 of season 2 (DO NOT SAVE ON THIS DAY)
i then inspect the 2yo i have bought and if they are no good i ctrl alt del close game down
i then re load so5 and it takes me back into last day of season 1 again
i go back to auction and buy again (DON'T WORRY THE 2YO ARE DIFFERENT EACH TIME)
& more importantly there stats are different each time
i do the above until i find 1 decent gamebred horse

AS You only need 1 good horse to start your breeding empire

so once i have found 1 with good stats i then retire to stud and if it is a male horse i cover every single non owned mare
in barn that comes with a fee of over £100.000 or has had big g1 success

if its a female you have found i then cover her with the most expensive non owned stallion in barn

that is the start of your breeding empire

i hope it helps and if you have any more questions give me a shout

Do you mean with a fee over £100,000? I think most have a fee of over £100.00!

Personally I'd avoid anything that has won the Melbourne cup when breeding, they often command high breeding fees but are also often awful!

Breeding Fee of ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND + Cat
i saw 1 with fee of £60 once rated 33 how did that get in barn

Cheers Legendary Paul for this helpful advice.

Paul, I have followed your guidelines above for creating a breeding empire, but, I have a question:
I have purchased for just over a million quid a Group 1 winning 4 year old stallion from the Thursday auctions. Do I still need to buy every 2 year old that is priced over a million quid for the start of the next season? Cheers.

It can't hurt Exx. You might get something even better, unlikely but you can just sell them again or ctrl alt delete until you get something decent. I'd keep buying until you regularly breed decent horses, then there is little point in bothering.

Personally I don't do it this way, I prefer to keep opening up new games until I'm given really good horses. I think it's quicker. Also your starting horses often command higher prices at the start rather than halfway through the season.

Cheers SC will keep you posted of my progress

Thanks everyone for the responses.

A couple of other questions if I may. I did some searches and found some info on the below questions, but still not totally clear. It has to do with the potential of horses.

1. When I get my new batch of two year olds they have the current ability and maximum potential. From what I've read, it sounds like that bar will increase over 2-3 races and not much after that in the 2 year old season. Can it increase in their 3/4 year old season?

2. It also appears that they can add potential in their 5 year old season. Say they didn't reach their potential in their 2 year old season and the current and maximum are somewhat far apart, anyway that gap can be closed when they are 5. Just trying to figure out if it is worth keeping these horses who's current ability is average but has huge upside potential that was not reached when they were 2 years old.

3. Finally, say I have a horse who had the potential to have a full green bar but it never reached that max. Would this be a good horse to breed with or do you only want horses who actually reached the full green bar and it wasn't just potential.

Thanks all.

One thing I would like to ask is importing from other games necessary if you want to build a proper homebred dynasty where you only breed with your own horses if you want to avoid inbreeding?

1 & 2. Achieved potential rises most in first 2 races as a 2 year old. It rises very little in the following 2-3 races. Neither potential (achieved/max) rises at 3. At 4/5 they both rise. I can't remember if the gap narrows. My recollection is not but someone might have proof otherwise.

3. Offspring tend to have the same patterns in achieved:max potential ratios but there are exceptions. I would prefer to breed horses that have both high achieved and max potentials but when starting out you might have no choice here. Don't get too hung up on max potential. If the max potential is 90% + then trial in CK and breed the fastest horse. I have lots of horses with 100% max potential that run slower than horses with 95% max potential.



You don't have to have other games but you're unlikely to find horses in 1 game that are the fastest at every distance. So one game may throw up a lot of great 5f horses. Another might throw up lots of 1m2f horses. IMO no random number generator is ever truly random and I find this reflected in game. Perhaps in time it would even out but my gameplay rarely takes me past 5 years in any game.